Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 1.djvu/315

291 agrees not with hers: but if thou wilt, I can alter the contract for thee.” And my brother answered, “See if thou have another device.” Then the notary left him and he sat down in his shop, till some one should bring him work by which he might earn his day’s bread. Presently the slave-girl came to him and said, “My mistress would speak with thee.” “Go, my good girl,” replied he; “I will have no more to do with thy mistress.” So the girl returned to her mistress and told her what my brother had said, and presently she put her head out of the window, weeping and saying, “O my beloved, why wilt thou have no more to do with me?” But he made her no answer. Then she swore to him that all that had befallen him in the mill was without her sanction and that she was guiltless of the whole affair. When he saw her beauty and grace and heard the sweetness of her speech, he forgot what had befallen him and accepted her excuse and rejoiced in her sight. So he saluted her and talked with her and sat at his sewing awhile, after which the servant came to him and said, “My mistress salutes thee and would have thee to know that her husband purposes to lie this night abroad with some intimate friends of his; so when he is gone, do thou come to us and pass the night with her in all delight till the morning.” Now the man had said to his wife, “How shall we do to turn him away from thee?” Quoth she, “Let me play him another trick and make him a byword in the city.” But my brother knew nothing of the malice of women. As soon as it was night, the servant came to him and carried him to the house; and when the lady saw him, she said to him, “By Allah, O my lord, I have been longing for thee!” “By Allah,” replied he, “make haste and give me a kiss first of all.” Hardly had he spoken, when the master of the house came in from an inner room and seized him, saying, “By Allah, I will not let thee go, till I deliver thee to the chief of the police.”